Monday, August 10, 2009

8/10/09: Under pressure from LGBT activists like yourself, the company has pulled their sponsorship from the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage citing "It has come to our attention that the Rhode Island event organizer and purpose of the event fall outside of our sponsorship guidelines. As such, Tim Hortons can not provide support at the event.

Tim Hortons and its store owners have always welcomed all families and communities to its restaurants and will continue to do so. We apologize for any misunderstanding or inconvenience this may have caused." (Tim Hortons).

8/9/09: Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons is sponsoring the National Organization for Marriage’s antigay cookout and worship service on Aug. 16 at Aldrich Mansion in suburban Providence, Rhode Island.

Tim Hortons is Canada’s largest food service operation — by some measures, larger than McDonald’s in that country. It is also the largest Canadian coffeehouse chain — Starbucks is No. 2. It has expanded into the eastern United States in recent years, acquiring local chains and amassing a network of 500 U.S. restaurants as it seeks to push aside Starbucks and New England-based Dunkin’ Donuts.

Tim Hortons’ sponsorship of the National Organization for Marriage appears to be in violation of corporate policy against support for religious and political causes.

Contact Tim Hortons and give them your thoughts about the value of corporate policies that apparently were made to be broken.

Called them, got the run around a bit, left a message with some corporate joe and am expecting a call back. Anyone else called? And is there any other info we can read? I have to say I am surprised and skeptical that any company would be so stupid. Tim Horton's used to be such a nifty little alternative to the big coffee sellers, that's how they got so popular. This is beyond sucky if it's true. Boycotts all around, I'll get the word out if neccessary (ie postering around as many locations as I can). It's a mistake to tick me off about this kind of stuff, I'm not afraid to take action. Hope you'll do it too.

@ MaveTim Horton was a Canadian Hokey Player, it is a Canadian corp that expanded into the Us(I knew that was a bad idea). Get your facts right before writing anything down. As a gay man, I feel this is a HUGE step back as the world is trying to move forward in having the world understand that being gay is NOT a disease, not a disorder, it is NOT a choice, you didn't "choose" to be straight, and I didn't choose to be gay. I have a Tim Horton's coffee now and I feel so disgusted that this would be an "event". Why can't we all just freakin get along already? Why do there have to be gay haters? If it doesn't affect you, why freakin bother????? People need to understand that there are different people in the world and they need to be accepted for who they are. I accept straight people, open up your minds people

What a bunch of whiners. TH's collapsed under queer pressure as so many other organizations and people have. No one said life was fair and always equitable. Marriage is between a man and a woman, period. Get over it and get on with your lives. I will no longer support the TH's chain because they backed out of their commitment to provide coffee for an event celebrating family and marriage.

If you bother looking up any of Maggie Gallageher's writings, you will discover that she is a firm advocate of eliminating no-fault divorce. Banning of gay marriage is only NOM's first step. After being politcally successful at this, the second step is to eliminate no-fault divorce. Perhaps if this was brought to the attention of the straight community, they might have second thoughts on supporting the agenda of Maggie Gallagher and her organization, NOM.

I got a reply to the email I sent to another corporate sponsor, Blount. They pulled their sponsorship too, YAY! See what happens when you make some noise? Tolerance and RESPECT is the name of the game these days. Things can only go up from here so long as we stay the path, keep united and positive and make our voices heard!